Anything For You

Summary:
Jacob/Nessie, Edward/Bella, Jacob/Bella He would be anything she needs (but she doesn't need him.) At least, not for herself. Where her mother saw two paths, she sees three, and she runs down the third with open arms and a smile. One Shot.

1. Chapter 1

Her voice is the iron tone of the orders she avoids like the plague they are because she wants him to choose, to choose, and his only choice is hers.

“Nessie,” with such warmth she almost wavers.

Gentle hands on his face and she tells him.

Before I was born, you were in love with my mother.

“Yes,” honestly, simply, just ‘yes,’ because they both know it’s nothing more than a dream now, eclipsed completely, and they’ve had this talk a hundred times before.

You still are. Underneath the imprint.

Softer this time, reluctant now, “yes.”

Jake, she’s falling apart.

A flash of images, of a pale heart-shaped face breaking, of tears that will never leave eyes blacker than night, of changing from bliss to agony, slowly.

This isn’t the forever he promised her.

The beautiful boy, forever seventeen, breaking apart with ideas too old for him, even with centuries behind him, consumed with love he is too young to comprehend.

This isn’t what either of them want.

His eyes, turning golden, alone, the slow passage of years, a flash of blonde-red hair in the future, a vision stolen from another mind, slowly.

Jake. You told me once, anything I asked you for, you’d do. Is that true?

“Yes,” and this time, full of dread, because he knows, he sees it coming. He knows her like he knows Bella, and he understands what their future will become.

I want you to do this for me. I want you to tell her what I’ve told you. Tell her you see what he’s doing to her, that the love they had isn’t meant to be an eternal kind of thing… Jake, yours is.

He begins to protest, and the soft little hand moves from his cheek to cover his lips.

You were prepared to love me forever, if that’s what I needed. It isn’t.

He flinches.

I’m sorry.

“Don’t be, honey.”

That’swhatyouusedtocallher… she thinks in a tumble and then rips her hand from his face suddenly. She continues aloud. “Don’t call me that. And I really am sorry, Jake. I know it’s what you think you want, but… but… it isn’t. Jake, you’re under a spell. It’s like I’m… I’m taking you away from who you are, and I can’t stand that.”

He leans in, intense, and she closes her (mother’s) eyes. She cannot stand it, the warmth of his sweet breath, deep like pine needles, gentle (always so gentle) on her face. “Nessie. I want the truth. Do you love me?”

He, on the other hand, cannot look away as her pale lips open. “Like a brother. Like the other half of my soul. Like I’ve never loved anyone else and never… never will, Jake. But I can’t rightfully say it would be fair to spend the rest of forever with you. I also can’t say I want to. I know Nahuel’s in love with me. And I know that I can exist on my own, without either of you to help me. I’m a complete person, Jake. I’m not my mother. I’d rather be alone than watch her fall apart in the life she was dumb enough to choose, because anyone with eyes can see it isn’t right for her!”

He pauses for a moment and breathes in deeply, and then out, through his nose. Nessie is suddenly completely silent, as still as her father in moments of stress. “Nessie. Do you really think she… she… do you…”

He’s not sure whether he’s taken aback or shocked or… happy? Happy?

He knew the love was there. He knew it, with absolute certainty, but it was hopeless while Nessie was inevitable.

No. This is going the wrong way. These are stupid, senseless thoughts… thoughts that never should have existed. Thoughts that will only hurt him more, and hasn’t he been harmed enough? Yes. He has. And he knows, knows, that doing this will hurt Nessie. His Nessie. And he won’t survive that.

“Don’t, Ness. Don’t ask me for this.”

“You said anything, Jake. Anything. And this is what I want. I am asking you to go and tell my mother you love her.”

Her voice is hard and cold as ice, no, harder. Like a rock that’s been in a refrigerator too long, long enough that it starts to smell of must and ancient foods, that it lies on the hand heavier than ever and still frigid.

“Did you ever think that maybe you’re wrong, Ness? Huh? Did you ever think that me trying to mess up her happy ending again might not really be what she wants?”

She is silent, and the silence has thorns in it. It makes him wince, as though the assault the complete quiet sends at him is a true blow, and he can feel the sting on his cheek like that tiny soft hand has just landed there with as much intent to hurt as the silence.

“Nessie, you are the only child in the history of the universe who has ever actually tried to break up your parents. Are you aware of that?”

“I’d rather split them up than watch her die inside… or watch him try to bring her back when there’s nothing in her! Stop it, Jake! Heal her. Make her better. Isn’t that what you’re good at?” “Yeah, and the last time it tried… they’ve told you this story. You know how many pieces that broke me into.”

Her hand is soft on his face and her words are a shadow of the silence ringing almost inaudibly in the depths of his mind. I never figured you for the selfish type, Jake.

And that’s when he realizes the real meaning of pain, because he knows it isn’t true. He knows he is the most selfless person in this whole sorry mess of a love dodecahedron with complex familial relationships, fathers and daughters and wives and soul mates and magic and forever tangling in webs that never should have existed.

Except for her. For his Nessie. She’s giving him up for all the others, because they could have perfect happiness that isn’t worth it.

“Ness. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. Not… not for her. I won’t give up my future for Bella again on your whim.”

It’s not a debatable topic.

She sighs, the breath blowing one of those perfect curls he can’t help loving into his face. He pulls it straight and lets it spring back and waits for her inevitable laugh.

It doesn’t come.

Instead, she softly smoothes her hand into a line against his cheek and shows him.

With sobs that don’t come she curls into a pile he puts his hand on her back she shakes it off

He pinches his nose in frustration and holds it there more alone than he has ever been before even in the dark days before his Bella

His Bella is not his they are falling to pieces but her Jacob is not it’s a laughable irony because she chose to make the life that took her away from the only thing she wants forever

And forever is a lousy joke because this infatuation has faded and left her craving the only real love she’s ever known

In the strangled silence, doubt disappears and leaves him with few words. “Nessie, how do you know this?” He is furious. No child, especially not one so precious, so delicate, should be exposed to that much pain.

Never mind that he was sixteen when he turned into a monster and seventeen when he got his heart broken forty different ways and eighteen when he watched the woman he love marry his mortal enemy and not even nineteen yet when he imprinted on her child…

Jacob never had his childhood, but he would give anything to spare Nessie that loss. Never mind immortality. It’s the beginning.

I have eyes, unlike you. I see. I see them dying in this dead relationship. I’m not even sure they loved each other, and she certainly doesn’t now…

He can hear the tears in her thoughts. His arms ache to hold her.

He doesn’t.

The instinct is strong, to give her what she needs, but he fights it off because she doesn’t really want to need him.

Bella never had this strength.

I’m not going to pick a side. I’m not going to be Team Jacob or Team Nahuel. I’m on Team Nessie, all right? I’m going to be an independent party here, not something to fight over. You need to be needed, Jake, and Mom needs you right now. She needs you bad. And I don’t. But I need her to stop hurting. She’s my mom, you know. She’s… she’s part of me.

“They all think I loved her because you were always a part of her… now…”

“They’re wrong, Jake. You loved her. You love me. Why do they have to be related?”

And he’s smiling, suddenly, because she really knows, she knows his devotion, he hasn’t failed, and she understands the imprinting better than anyone else (better than even Sam with his leaving Leah, maybe, because Emily really didn’t want that guilt) and Bella really does love him, even if they’ll have to make do without the whole might-have-been—the breath, the warmth, the life, the children.

But it might well be good enough—Edward was enough to give up everything for him, he wasn’t, but might be now that she’s seen the fallacy in forever.

“Ness, are you absolutely sure? Because even for the imprint, even for you, I won’t break her like he did. If you want me to be with her, I won’t leave you.”

She speaks aloud, ringing with the weight of surety, the ultimate knowing that the connection—hand on face, heart in heart—is broken.

“Yes, Jacob. I’m sure.”

“All right, Nessie. If this is what you want.”

“It is.” Steel and ice and iron—all the others and then some. Clipped, and final.

“Anything for you. Renesmee,” and her name is a prayer, and he wants to speak some cliché or break one but what are the words for this situation? It’s utterly unique. They’re the first. Bye, soulmate, bye, forever, I’m going to do as you ask and get with your mother.

“Thanks,” she says quietly, taking her hand from his face. The coldness of her touch is gone, and the sudden warmth sends a shiver through him… and he stands and walks away from her.

She watches him go with eyes the age of eternity and smiles as she, too, pulls herself to her feet, under no power but that of her own will. She has the power to make the choice her mother forsake. Where Bella saw two options, Nessie sees three, and she runs down the middle path of her own making with wide arms and a smile.